Bucco Fever

Posts Tagged Jesse Chavez

Playing catch up

Nov 9

Posted by Sean H. Steimer | No Comments

A lot has happened in The Pirates world and the baseball world in general since I last posted.  I just wanna give my thoughts on some of what went down.

Pirates acquire Akinori Iwamura for Jesse Chavez

This deal actually happened when I was on vacation in Hawaii, which is why I didn’t post anything then.  So far, among Pirates blogs I’ve read, there seems to be a mixed analysis focusing on the fact that Chavez still has 5 years of club control left compared to Aki’s 1.  Obviously, you hate to see a young talented reliever like Chavez go, but as with any trade, you have to give something to get something, and Iwamura is worth that price to me.  Relief pitching is the most inconsistent and unpredictable position in baseball.  I liked Chavez, and I thought he had a lot of potential to become a high leverage reliever, but I would much rather have a known commodity manning second base.  I believe that one of the reasons our team went into a tailspin after the Wilson and Sanchez trades last season is that the defense up the middle that made our starting pitching look so good early in the season was no longer there.  A middle infield of Iwamura and Cedeno, while not Jack and Freddy, should provide 90% of the defense we saw early last year.  As with any trade, you can’t pick out the true winner and loser until a year or more down the line, but I’m gonna say the Pirates are a better team now than they were before the trade and I’ll like it even more if the end up extending Aki for a few more years past this one.

Perry Hill will not be back as our infield instructor

This one is a huge blow.  Hill was a mastermind of infield defense, and you don’t have to look very far to find quotes from players praising his work.  There was some controversy when he left over why he wasn’t coming back.  Regardless of the reason, Hill decided he didn’t want to work for the Pirates so he’s is gone and I’m sad to see him go.  The one point I’d make counter to that is that he’s only a coach.  Obviously you want to have the best coaches money can buy, especially with a young team like the Pirates have.  But as with any other sport, the talent on the field is what wins games, not the coaches on the bench.  Hill will be replaced by former Pirate Carlos Garcia.

Yankees win World Series

I address this not because I care about the Yankees or the Phillies.  I have a great amount of dislike for both teams and I yearn for the days when Pirates v. Phillies can be a rivalry again.  However, since it ended there has been a lot of discussion in the national media about The payroll advantage the Yankees have, and whether they “bought a championship.”  That is what I want to address.  To say the Yankees bought a championship is unfair to the Yankees.  They are playing within the rules and taking advantage of every opportunity they have, good for them.  Also, saying that they bought a title ignores the fact that almost every team in the Playoffs this year has an astronomical payroll (2009 payroll).  If you count the Tigers and their one game playoff with the Twins, 7 of the top 9 made the Playoffs this year.

With that, here is how I like to think of the advantage the top payroll teams have.  Every extra dollar is a dollar that can be used to make up for mistakes in personnel and player development.  If you the Kansas City Royals, the Pittsburgh Pirates, or any other team who can’t afford to sign the top free agents, you have to be almost perfect.  All of your top draft picks have to turn out to be great players.  When you trade your top players who are free agency eligible, the return has to turn out to be solid major league talent.  As you move up the ladder to teams with a few more dollars, there’s a little more room for error.  And when you get to the top, teams like the Yankees have an almost unlimited margin for error.  Their draft picks are almost irrelevant.  They can afford to take chances on reclamation projects like Billy Wagner.  Any mistake made in developing personnel can be covered up by a good free agent signing.  And those very free agent signings are very low risk because its proven talent.  Obviously its  huge advantage, a broken system that needs to be fixed.

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Game Notes – August 25th – Phillies @ Pirates

Aug 26

Posted by Sean H. Steimer | No Comments

I’m moving so I didn’t see last nights game.  I was however, as luck would have it, near a radio for every exciting moment of the game.  I took a break from packing to hear the bottom of the second when Doumit went deep to tie it, then I stayed around for the top of the 3rd when JRoll hit his second Dinger of the game.  After some more packing, I took a break to go to Target to get some things, and it happened to be the 6th inning when Pearce hit his 2 run shot to take the lead.  Then, after eating dinner, we got back to the car and put on the radio to hear the top of the 9th and the inevitable Matt Capps’ blowup inning.  Finally, after I got home and finished one last thing for the night, I heard the Pirates make one of the most terrific comebacks ever.

Since I didn’t see any of the game, and only heard bits and pieces, I’m not going to try to provide any deep analysis.  I have 2 points I want to make here though.  First, Matt Capps is not the same pitcher right now as he has been in the past.  I think I’ve said this before on this blog, but I’ve never really been a believer in Capps.  At his best, he has good velocity and great control on his fastball, but he doesn’t really have a second pitch.  I like that in an 8th inning guy, but you can’t be an elite closer without an out pitch.  Right now, and for large stretches of this year though, he has not been at his best.  That control has been largely missing this year.  Add to that a decrease in velocity and what you have is a guy out there throwing meatballs.  There are 2 key numbers that illustrate the difference from this year to last.  First, he is throwing far fewer fastballs this year when compared to last.  Last year, he threw his fastball 78.6% of the time.  This year, its down to 70.9%.  That’s a huge difference, which indicats that he doesn’t trust his fastball as much this year.  The second number is his BB/9 rate.  Last year it was .84, this year its 3.19, almost 4 times higher.

Essentially, my point here is this.  Matt Capps should not be the closer for this team right now.  One of the things this management group has harped on over and over again is accountability.  This is a perfect opportunity to show they are serious about it.   Capps isn’t good right now and both Joel Hanrahan and Jesse Chavez are pitching well.  One of those two should be given the chance to close and perhaps a move like that would take some pressure off of Capps and allow him to figure out what is wrong.

The second point I want to make is about Andrew McCutchen.  He may end up being the savior of this franchise.  OK, I realize that’s premature, and that it will take much more than one player to make this team a contender.  Seriously though, his play has been nothing short of spectacular, way exceeding the expectations I had for a 22 year old rookie on a bad baseball team.  He absolutely deserves to be the NL rookie of the year, and when you look at his numbers compared to the other contenders (Dexter Fowler, Colby Rasmus), he should be the only position player in the discussion.  If your a fantasy player, take him early next year, because he’s going to give you 20/20 with a .290 average and 90 or so RBI’s.

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